The post Ron DeSantis rips Daniel Perez for obstructing his priorities appeared first on Florida Politics – Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government..
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Gov. Ron DeSantis has struggled to push his agenda through multiple times over the past two years, and he says House Speaker Daniel Perez is to blame.
Speaking in Madison, the outgoing Governor maligned the Miami Republican, calling Perez an obstructionist motivated by personal beef at the expense of putting conservative policies in place.
“He is not governing in the best interests of the people of the state of Florida. He has a personal agenda. He has other things that he’s concerned about,” DeSantis said of Perez.
DeSantis, whose conflicts with Perez have been aired since last year, said that “when you have people that got elected on our back, like the Speaker of the House, get in and do the opposite of what the voters expected us to do, I’m going to call that out.”
Perez, like DeSantis, was elected in 2018, a year DeSantis didn’t demonstrate coattails given it took a recount to get him past Democrat Andrew Gillum.
DeSantis took issue with Perez refusing to hear “medical freedom” legislation as well as the so-called “AI Bill of Rights” during last month’s congressional reapportionment Special Session.
Regarding the bills not being introduced in the House, DeSantis suggested that members were told “don’t file on this,” giving Perez a pretext not to hear the measures passed by the Senate in the Regular Session.
DeSantis believes voters will ask legislators why the House didn’t take action.
“I think the constituents are going to go to these House members. They are going to say: ‘You got a Special Session. You had a chance to lead. Florida’s always led on this stuff. Why would we be backtracking on medical freedom given all the fights we won during COVID? Why would we not want to lead on protecting people in this age, you know, where so many people are trying to accelerate AI?’ To me, these were just no-brainers.”
DeSantis noted that he worked well with Senate President Ben Albritton, whom he lauded as a “friend” and a “good guy,” and urged listeners to consider his “track record” with the Speakers who preceded Perez as context.
“Look at the six years leading up to this. We were more productive than any time in the history of the state of Florida legislatively. And yeah, part of it was me setting the agenda, but part of it was you had other people leading that chamber who wanted to put big points on the board and took pride in that we were leading on all these different issues for Floridians. That has just changed over the last year-plus,” DeSantis said.
“I would not say that there’s a similarity between our interactions with the Senate leadership and the House leadership. I think it’s totally different. And I think we’ve worked very well with the Senate leadership.”
The post Ron DeSantis rips Daniel Perez for obstructing his priorities appeared first on Florida Politics – Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government..
